ddo

When I look back at last year, the most surprising turn in my MMO gaming career was staging a successful return to Dungeons and Dragons Online. Initially I had only planned to revisit this old flame for a couple of runs and a quick blog post, but before I knew it, I had been sucked back in to this unique and flavorful MMO.

Over the past four months I’ve been slowly progressing through the early and mid game, taking my scrappy Gnome Artificer up to level 10 and through more odd stories than I ever recall being a part of the game (to be fair, the last time I had played regularly was 2010).

Now that I’ve had time to experience and reflect upon playing Dungeons and Dragons Online in this day and age, I wanted to share with you 10 observations that I’ve gleaned from this fantasy roleplaying game.

Massively OP’s Justin & MJ are delving into another DDO adventure. They will be waging war against the Arzag-Khor tribe so that the hobgoblin Karnat Thaar can seize possession of the Tear of Dhakaan, an ancient relic from the Dhakaani Empire. Join us live at 9:00 p.m. take on this long quest.

On this week’s show, Bree and Justin mull over the fate of MOBAs, investigate Alganon’s nebulous state, talk about why subscribing to an alpha test might not be the smartest thing in the world, and more!

It’s the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you’d like to send in your own letter to the show, use the “Tips” button in the top-right corner of the site to do so.

Stargrace said that it was “highly unlikely” that she’d return for this: “While I am drawn into progression servers for EverQuest and EverQuest II due to a heavy nostalgia factor, I don’t get those same warm fuzzy feelings about RIFT.”

“If anything induces me to give RIFT Prime a try it will be the extent to which the experience doesn’t accurately replicate the original,” Bhagpuss said. And Endgame Variable takes a look at it from the perspective of a former player: “Do I want to pay a subscription to play old content in RIFT — a game I’ve already played to death — or pay a subscription to play new content in FFXIV or WoW?”

This year promises to be a busy one for the developers and playerbase of Dungeons and Dragons Online, at least if this week’s producer’s letter is any indication. There’s a whole lot packed into a handful of paragraphs, but perhaps the most intriguing is a plan to bring a classic D&D module from the ’70s into the game in 2018.

“It’s White Plume Mountain, a classic 1979 dungeon that was also recently brought to 5th Edition in the Tales from the Yawning Portal book,” the studio said. “We’ll be giving this intense test of skill the DDO treatment later this summer in an adventure pack that will also feature several other stand-alone dungeons themed around wizards and their arcane environments.”

Other plans on tap for this year include a return to Eberron with this spring’s Update 38, the 12th anniversary event, third Artificer and Favored Soul trees, an overhaul of the Druid, an update to the Treasure of the Crystal Cove event, and more support for sentient weapons. The studio also hinted at a “big announcement” that it was saving for later this year. Any guesses as to what this may be?

Are you playing Warframe these days? If not, you might be missing out on the growing party of people who seem to be flocking to Digital Extremes’ free-to-play shooter. Plenty of bloggers continue to discover and extol the virtues of this game, even years after it first hit the scene.

“The game’s been around for several years now,” said Nomadic Gamer, “so there’s a lot of maturity in the advice community and when people ask for ‘best builds’ they can be referred to builds created years ago.”

In An Age considers Warframe to be his “‘I don’t know what I feel like doing’ and ‘I only have 30 minutes to play’ game.” And while Superior Realities felt like the game was only “meh,” he did recognize the powerful effect of that word-of-mouth is having with this title.

On this week’s show, Bree and Justin sift through early 2018 news, including a possible leak of Amazon’s New World, a touching player memorial in RIFT, warnings of alien attacks in Elite: Dangerous, and more!

It’s the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you’d like to send in your own letter to the show, use the “Tips” button in the top-right corner of the site to do so.

A comment on Reddit about the current size and viability of Kritika Online got me thinking about MMO playerbases in general lately. We all know that there’s a stigma attached to little games; the big games with big servers and millions of players feel safer, and nowadays people just assume a small MMO has one foot in the grave. But it isn’t always true. We could also rattle off some smaller MMOs that seem to be moving along just fine, with bills paid. Sure, they’d like to be bigger, but they’re holding steady and know how to work the playerbase they do have rather than constantly alienate their current customers in search of new customers. And some MMO gamers actually prefer those sorts of titles. After all, if the game has just a few thousand people, it’s much easier to get to know a large slice of them, plus have your voice heard by the developers and actually influence the gameworld.

For this week’s Massively Overthinking, I’ve asked the writers to reflect on the smallest MMOs they have played, and then consider how big an MMO has to be in terms of playerbase that they’d consider playing it now. What’s the smallest MMO you’re willing to play, and why?

There’s concern of a graverobber halfling named Moonshadow Lighfoot that might be dabbling in necromancy in DDO, and Massively OP’s Justin and MJ are tasked with investigating. What will they unearth? And what will they need to return to the earth? Join us live at 8:00 p.m. as the duo help Thaddeus d’Jorasco with his grave problem.

How do you feel about grinding in MMOs? What about farming? These questions can elicit a wide variety of answers, from shrieks of dismay to enthusiastic head nods. Depending on the situation, grinding and farming can be something to be enjoyed, to be endured, or to be avoided at all cost.

The Game Freak Show says that he has a love/hate affair with grinding and farming, and it presents all sorts of muddled emotions, especially when gated mechanics are thrown into the mix: “While I have forgiven the grind in many RPGs for sucking away my time, this disturbing trend of games that do not have a harsh grind because they’re flawed or made for a different audience, but to force people to drop more cash on the table is something I can’t.”

Before we jump into 2018, let’s take a moment to ruminate on our personal accomplishments in MMO gaming this year.

While I didn’t get around to all of the games that I wanted to play or had enough time to enjoy the ones I did, I feel like it was a pretty solid year all around for me. I went through the Bingo Boffin storyline and Mordor in Lord of the Rings Online, got my fourth level 110 in World of Warcraft, and brought my Secret World Legends character all the way through the game (again). I even got reacquainted with an old favorite MMO — Dungeons and Dragons Online — and collected tons of great stories.

What were your best MMORPG gaming achievements in 2017? Looking back, what are you most proud of doing? What made you the happiest? What game worlds did you visit and what did you do in them?

Standing Stone Games activated an additional raid for the expansion called Old Baba’s Hut that draws from the darker side of myths. “This Legendary level raid does not require flagging, and puts players against Baba Lysaga herself,” the studio said.

Meanwhile, Festivult is bringing in some holiday cheer and bonus loot to DDO. Hollywood is also adding to the Dungeons and Dragons legend, planning yet another movie and scheduling it for a 2021 release. This film franchise hasn’t had the best of runs so far, but hopefully this will be the title to change that streak.

On this week’s show, Justin and Bree sort out the pile of expansions and updates that developers are scrambling to get out of the door before the holiday break. From vampires to kobolds, there’s something for everyone this month, and it only looks to get nuttier with the new year!

It’s the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you’d like to send in your own letter to the show, use the “Tips” button in the top-right corner of the site to do so.